Yet another tiny house blog…

Moving Day

The house is on the slab! I repeat, the house… is on… the slab. It was a huge undertaking and I am so grateful for those who volunteered to help.

Earlier in the week dad and I put the tires back on. They are not in the best shape and that was my biggest worry for the move. We had to shuffle the order around because a couple of the tires rubbed on the floor joists. If/when I move or sell the house I would definitely replace the tires and probably even the axles.

Shoveling the slab for the last time. Dad had me make the truncated-pyramidal blocks to go over the eye hooks on the slab so we wouldn’t blow a tire.

Our friend, Gary, came over with his tractor with a hitch ball mounted on the front loader. The tractor did most of the towing, alternating between the front and back hitches. We used dad’s plow truck and chain to help pull the tractor when the traction wasn’t so good. We also used the chain around the front of the loader, hooked to the trailer hitch, and Gary maneuvered it to make small adjustments so we could line up the edges of the house with the edges of the slab.

Ken came back to help. I thought the sheetrocking might have been enough to scare him off but he dared to come back! It was a big help having someone there who knew the appropriate hand signals to give Gary so he wouldn’t have to guess at my miming skills.

A. Kelly was there to help document the move, which worked out well since mom’s camera battery died. A. Kelly got about an hour’s worth of footage and I edited it down to only include actual movement of the house and then I sped it up to 4x the original speed. There was a lot of hard work and running around that I left out of the movie for the sake of time.

U. Les doing some heavy lifting.

Is this really happening?

Who put that tree there?

My brother, Mike, arrived with two of his friends at just the right time. He thought our 9-degree weather was downright tropical compared to the -14 he left up north.

Nancy and the safety supervisor watching from the window. Maybe she got an indoor pass due to her Californitis…? :oP

A. Darlene and Carol Lee, hardy Maine women, braving the cold.

Drain pipe too close for comfort.

A. Kelly taking a movie.

I just liked this action shot.

Ta-dah!

A feast for the cold and weary! Subs courtesy of Carol Lee and donuts from A. Kelly.

All in all, it took about 2-1/2 hours to get the house situated. All of the drywall survived with no damage. I left my toolbox, the space heater, and water heater in the house during the move and they didn’t tip over! Surprisingly, all of the tires stayed intact. We’ve since taken them off so we can insulate and skirt around the bottom of the house. The trailer frame is supported by 2 cinder blocks topped with a 2 x 12 x 12″ board at 8 points around the trailer. It is secured to the slab with 4 turnbuckles, from the eye bolts in the slab to the U-bolts in the trailer frame (I’ll get a picture of them for the next post). Next up is flashing and skirting the underside and taping the drywall.

This is crazy amazing. The video was wonderful. I loved the speed with the walking and talking. Also, really laughed at that action shot of Mike in one of the stills. Shaking my head at how you are making your dream a reality. There’s sumpin about you Maine people…mwah